So you may notice that a lot of the updates at the moment are on subjects that are, like, so last month. Apologies - I've been meaning to update this thing for quite a while but it's been the dreaded case of too many things and not enough time.
...Anyway, I've been meaning to write something about the AV vote for a few weeks so here it is. The main reason for this was reading a very interesting article in the New Statesman from behind the No Campaign here. It's very well-written and a good read no matter what your thoughts on voting reform might be. As someone who studied politics at Uni, I've watched things unravel with interest in this whole farrago and, if I'm honest, the conclusion I can't help but come to is that the No campaign didn't really win the vote, the Yes campaign lost it.
Truth is, I think the case for voting reform was lost long before the whole campaign around it kicked in when Nick Clegg brokered his deal with David Cameron last year. Anyone with any sort of political knowledge will tell you that AV doesn't really represent a massive change from our existing First Past The Post system in that it keeps all the problems of the existing system (disproportionate, leads to large majorities which don't really reflect the way the public voted overall) while adding a whole load of new ones as well (makes it harder for smaller parties to get elected due to the second choice vote system, means that the first candidate doesn't always win). I really can't see what Clegg thought he was going to gain by signing up to this idea, especially as he'd dismissed it in the past. At the very least, they could have gone with the Green Party's idea and offered us a choice of voting systems - personally, I think the fairest system for us would have been an Alternative Member system with the number of constituencies reduced to about 400 or so and the remaining 200 MP's elected under a pure Proportional Representation system. But then maybe that's just me.
The fact is though that the Yes campaign could easily have won this if they hadn't run everything so shoddily. They were well ahead in the polls before the No campaign really shifted into gear and, even then, the arguments the No campaign was using were generally pretty flimsy and could easily have been blown apart with a bit of effective campaigning. The harsh truth is that they made a number of key mistakes which, in my mind, lost them the argument.
Firstly, they were far too slow to go on the attack against the opposition, presumably because they thought up until March that victory was in the bag. I think nearly everyone knows that it wouldn't have cost £250 million to implement a new voting system and the fact that the Yes campaign didn't even bother to put a poster out with something to counter this argument was a key factor in them losing the war.
Secondly, the campaign just wasn't inclusive enough. David Milliband and Nick Clegg's refusal to share a platform together just did untold amounts of damage. For all that I despise David Cameron and the Tories, they at least had the sense to realise that to present a united front when campaigning on a single issue, you need to share a platform with people who might be your ideological enemies the rest of the time - hence Cameron sharing a platform with John Reid. Now had the Yes campaign held its conference with Miliband, Clegg, Charles Kennedy, Caroline Lucas and Nigel Farage from the UKIP (yes, I don't like them either but on this issue they were in the same boat as the Libs, and it would've done a good job of showing the electorate that people whose views might be more right of centre and were disaffected with the Tories would have had a reason to vote yes) on the same platform - five people representing almost the full breadth of the political spectrum, then it would have comprehensively trumped Cameron's effort. Instead we had Miliband, Kennedy, Lucas and, um, Eddie Izzard. You do the maths.
Thirdly, while the No campaign came across as clear, concise and unwavering in their arguments (as erroneous as a lot of those were), the Yes campaign just seemed to throw their toys out of the pram at anyone who disagreed with them (a classic example, reading the Guardian board and seeing someone actually use the phrase "You're betraying your children's future if you vote No!" Oh please, give me a break, I don't think so somehow) and the constant barrage of complaining how the No campaign's tactics were unfair. Yes, they probably were but there's a good quote here from Sean Connery's character in the film "The Rock" which goes along the line that if you ever felt like you've been cheated, you probably deserved it because losers usually do. Winners just shut up, get on with it, go home and f**k the prom queen.
So to summarise then, I reckon if the Yes campaign had shown a bit of open-mindedness, a bit more of a "can do" mentality and generally hadn't acted like such a bunch of whinging spoilt pricks then they could have easily won the AV campaign. As it is, they've only themselves to blame for this defeat. Mind you, as said earlier, it's a defeat over something which, in my opinion, wasn't really worth winning in the first place. The campaign for REAL voting reform starts here. In the meantime, normal non-political service will be resumed on this blog as of the next entry...
Thursday 2 June 2011
Dear Impact Wrestling...
...Please please please stop shooting yourselves in the foot. It's getting painful to watch.
Okay, I'll admit it, I'm a wrestling fan. Have been ever since watching a VHS copy of Summerslam '88 round at a friend's house when I was a littlun. I've seen 'em come and go - the Hulk Hogan/Ultimate Warrior era of the late '80s/early '90s, arguably the WWF's best year ever in 1992 with the rise of Bret Hart and the awesome Ric Flair/Randy Savage (RIP) feud, the slump of the mid-'90s that followed it pretty much straight away, the Monday Night Wars, watching WCW for the first time in the mid-'90s, the rise of Stone Cold, the Rock and DX that put WWF firmly back on top, the fantastic in-ring action that the WWF had in 2000-01 with the likes of Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Edge and Christian and the Hardy Boyz, watching the unthinkable happen as WWF bought out WCW in 2001 but being so disappointed with the way they handled the Invasion angle that I stopped watching altogether. Yup, like I say, I've seen a lot.
I started watching wrestling again in about 2006-7 when I finally started to have access to more than four TV channels. And these days, surprisingly for someone who was such a WWF loyalist growing up, I have to admit it's WCW's bastard son TNA (or Impact Wrestling as it's recently rebranded itself) that I usually watch. Simple reason - it's easier to find it on UK TV plus, if I'm honest, I quite like the more low-rent early '90s feel of TNA than the big Hollywood budget feel of WWE.
The trouble is that, given that Impact is run by largely the same team who were in charge at WCW during the turn of the millennium years when the company well and truly tanked, a lot of the mistakes it's making at the moment are starting to look depressingly familiar. Especially annoying when you consider that Impact is now available on Freeview here in Britain and has therefore actually overtaken WWE (which is only available on pay-per-view) as the most watched wrestling show here.
Case in point number one - earlier in the year, in one of their first shows on Challenge, Impact put out a really good weekly show which really succeeded in getting everybody anticipating their Victory Road event. They then followed it with an absolutely terrible PPV capped off by a 90-second title match between Sting and a somewhat worse-for-wear Jeff Hardy. You'd think they'd learn from a mistake like this but...
Case in point number two - a couple of weeks ago, the company had a big episode of its weekly Impact show where it announced the company name rebranding, promised more in-ring action and less boring between match segments and capped things off with a very good 25-man battle royale as a way of showing they mean business. This was then followed the next week by one of the worst shows I've seen from them where the X Division (a division for the company's cruiserweights) Championship was won by the 300lb+ Abyss, there was about 15 minutes of actual wrestling in a two-hour show and the usual lame-brained skit segments took up way too much time again. Another case of potential squandered.
And I, for one, am getting sick of it. Look guys, business may be a bit shaky for you over in the States but over here you've garnered yourselves a huge section of the TV market by going on Freeview. And so far you're not giving us a lot of reasons to tune in. Here then is my ten point plan as to how Impact needs to turn itself around. It's really not that difficult - you'd think...
1) Start pushing the younger stars. Yes, I know guys like Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle etc were huge stars in their day but one of the things that sunk WCW was that they kept stale old guys at the top way past their sell by date at the expense of the young talent who simply migrated to WWF for a push they knew they'd never get in WCW. Case in point - AJ Styles, great wrestler, loved by the fans yet he's been stuck in the midcard for the best part of a year since the likes of Hogan and Flair came in and brought all their mates with them. It's very reminiscent of the mid-'90s WCW with Sting - seriously, if they gave Styles a push in a main event feud with someone like Ken Anderson then they'd have something well worth watching.
2) Speaking of Anderson, please make your minds up whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. One week the guy's putting in a gutsy-as-hell performance to win the battle royale at the expense of the heel Ray Dudley, the next he's attacking the good guy champion Sting. I know the idea is to have Anderson as a law unto himself but this shades of grey idea isn't helping him build up a solid reaction from the crowd. Give him an identity and stick with it.
3) I am desperately hoping that the whole "destroying the X Division" angle that's going on at the moment is part of a plan to rebuild it and give them some extra credibility (Mick Foley's announcement that there will be an X Division PPV coming up is a good start). I'll reserve judgment on this one to see how it goes but having the champion Kazarian lose the title to the lumbering Abyss and the Buck Brothers lose in a handicap match to Matt Hardy in the same week is not a good start.
4) You need to build up some credible main event heels. Ever since Jeff Hardy left to go to rehab there's been a very noticeable gap in this area as the main event title picture has been dominated by fan favourites Sting and Rob van Dam and tweener Ken Anderson (see point 2). Yes we've got the whole Immortal faction headed up by Hogan, Bischoff and Flair but all three of those are better used out of the ring than in it and at the moment they just don't seem to have any credible main event challengers in their ranks. There's a few on the outskirts of the scene who could reasonably figure - Jeff Jarrett has the experience even though I think he's past his best by now while Ray Dudley and Matt Hardy are both solid triers who could probably carry a short-term feud with Sting. Failing that, you could just go with point 2 and turn Anderson full-on heel. He's always been better in that kind of a role anyway in my opinion.
5) The tag team division. Now this I think is one of Impact's strong points - the quality of the teams in here is, in my opinion at least, actually better than in the WWE as they seem to have a better team dynamic. The trouble is that there doesn't seem to be any attempt to build up any slow-burn feuds here. Beer Money Inc are, I think, worthy champions - good solid wrestlers and the fans love 'em. But in the last few months they've just been in hot-shot feud after hot-shot feud with the likes of Gunner & Murphy, Ink Inc and Matt Hardy & Chris Harris, all of which have lasted a few weeks at most. Certainly I think all three of those feuds could've done with being stretched out a bit as it feels like we've had a year's worth of programming crammed into a few weeks. C'mon guys, the materials are definitely there - give Roode and Storm a serious feud and watch 'em go. Oh, and on the same subject...
6) Impact is now the number one wrestling programme in Britain. You may or may not have noticed this but you actually have a British tag team on your books (the British Invasion) who are also pretty decent wrestlers. Would it really be too much to ask if you could give them a push?
7) Finally - please please please please please can we see the end of the Jeff Jarrett/Kurt Angle feud. It's been lumbering on so long now that it's got to the point that nobody cares anymore. And I swear if it cuts the amount of promos we get from Double J it can only be a good thing...
So there you have it. I dunno if anyone from the company will read this but I guarantee ya, go with that seven point plan and I think you'll find a lot of fans put off by Victory Road will happily start tuning back in again. Here's hoping...
Okay, I'll admit it, I'm a wrestling fan. Have been ever since watching a VHS copy of Summerslam '88 round at a friend's house when I was a littlun. I've seen 'em come and go - the Hulk Hogan/Ultimate Warrior era of the late '80s/early '90s, arguably the WWF's best year ever in 1992 with the rise of Bret Hart and the awesome Ric Flair/Randy Savage (RIP) feud, the slump of the mid-'90s that followed it pretty much straight away, the Monday Night Wars, watching WCW for the first time in the mid-'90s, the rise of Stone Cold, the Rock and DX that put WWF firmly back on top, the fantastic in-ring action that the WWF had in 2000-01 with the likes of Chris Jericho, Chris Benoit, Edge and Christian and the Hardy Boyz, watching the unthinkable happen as WWF bought out WCW in 2001 but being so disappointed with the way they handled the Invasion angle that I stopped watching altogether. Yup, like I say, I've seen a lot.
I started watching wrestling again in about 2006-7 when I finally started to have access to more than four TV channels. And these days, surprisingly for someone who was such a WWF loyalist growing up, I have to admit it's WCW's bastard son TNA (or Impact Wrestling as it's recently rebranded itself) that I usually watch. Simple reason - it's easier to find it on UK TV plus, if I'm honest, I quite like the more low-rent early '90s feel of TNA than the big Hollywood budget feel of WWE.
The trouble is that, given that Impact is run by largely the same team who were in charge at WCW during the turn of the millennium years when the company well and truly tanked, a lot of the mistakes it's making at the moment are starting to look depressingly familiar. Especially annoying when you consider that Impact is now available on Freeview here in Britain and has therefore actually overtaken WWE (which is only available on pay-per-view) as the most watched wrestling show here.
Case in point number one - earlier in the year, in one of their first shows on Challenge, Impact put out a really good weekly show which really succeeded in getting everybody anticipating their Victory Road event. They then followed it with an absolutely terrible PPV capped off by a 90-second title match between Sting and a somewhat worse-for-wear Jeff Hardy. You'd think they'd learn from a mistake like this but...
Case in point number two - a couple of weeks ago, the company had a big episode of its weekly Impact show where it announced the company name rebranding, promised more in-ring action and less boring between match segments and capped things off with a very good 25-man battle royale as a way of showing they mean business. This was then followed the next week by one of the worst shows I've seen from them where the X Division (a division for the company's cruiserweights) Championship was won by the 300lb+ Abyss, there was about 15 minutes of actual wrestling in a two-hour show and the usual lame-brained skit segments took up way too much time again. Another case of potential squandered.
And I, for one, am getting sick of it. Look guys, business may be a bit shaky for you over in the States but over here you've garnered yourselves a huge section of the TV market by going on Freeview. And so far you're not giving us a lot of reasons to tune in. Here then is my ten point plan as to how Impact needs to turn itself around. It's really not that difficult - you'd think...
1) Start pushing the younger stars. Yes, I know guys like Sting, Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle etc were huge stars in their day but one of the things that sunk WCW was that they kept stale old guys at the top way past their sell by date at the expense of the young talent who simply migrated to WWF for a push they knew they'd never get in WCW. Case in point - AJ Styles, great wrestler, loved by the fans yet he's been stuck in the midcard for the best part of a year since the likes of Hogan and Flair came in and brought all their mates with them. It's very reminiscent of the mid-'90s WCW with Sting - seriously, if they gave Styles a push in a main event feud with someone like Ken Anderson then they'd have something well worth watching.
2) Speaking of Anderson, please make your minds up whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. One week the guy's putting in a gutsy-as-hell performance to win the battle royale at the expense of the heel Ray Dudley, the next he's attacking the good guy champion Sting. I know the idea is to have Anderson as a law unto himself but this shades of grey idea isn't helping him build up a solid reaction from the crowd. Give him an identity and stick with it.
3) I am desperately hoping that the whole "destroying the X Division" angle that's going on at the moment is part of a plan to rebuild it and give them some extra credibility (Mick Foley's announcement that there will be an X Division PPV coming up is a good start). I'll reserve judgment on this one to see how it goes but having the champion Kazarian lose the title to the lumbering Abyss and the Buck Brothers lose in a handicap match to Matt Hardy in the same week is not a good start.
4) You need to build up some credible main event heels. Ever since Jeff Hardy left to go to rehab there's been a very noticeable gap in this area as the main event title picture has been dominated by fan favourites Sting and Rob van Dam and tweener Ken Anderson (see point 2). Yes we've got the whole Immortal faction headed up by Hogan, Bischoff and Flair but all three of those are better used out of the ring than in it and at the moment they just don't seem to have any credible main event challengers in their ranks. There's a few on the outskirts of the scene who could reasonably figure - Jeff Jarrett has the experience even though I think he's past his best by now while Ray Dudley and Matt Hardy are both solid triers who could probably carry a short-term feud with Sting. Failing that, you could just go with point 2 and turn Anderson full-on heel. He's always been better in that kind of a role anyway in my opinion.
5) The tag team division. Now this I think is one of Impact's strong points - the quality of the teams in here is, in my opinion at least, actually better than in the WWE as they seem to have a better team dynamic. The trouble is that there doesn't seem to be any attempt to build up any slow-burn feuds here. Beer Money Inc are, I think, worthy champions - good solid wrestlers and the fans love 'em. But in the last few months they've just been in hot-shot feud after hot-shot feud with the likes of Gunner & Murphy, Ink Inc and Matt Hardy & Chris Harris, all of which have lasted a few weeks at most. Certainly I think all three of those feuds could've done with being stretched out a bit as it feels like we've had a year's worth of programming crammed into a few weeks. C'mon guys, the materials are definitely there - give Roode and Storm a serious feud and watch 'em go. Oh, and on the same subject...
6) Impact is now the number one wrestling programme in Britain. You may or may not have noticed this but you actually have a British tag team on your books (the British Invasion) who are also pretty decent wrestlers. Would it really be too much to ask if you could give them a push?
7) Finally - please please please please please can we see the end of the Jeff Jarrett/Kurt Angle feud. It's been lumbering on so long now that it's got to the point that nobody cares anymore. And I swear if it cuts the amount of promos we get from Double J it can only be a good thing...
So there you have it. I dunno if anyone from the company will read this but I guarantee ya, go with that seven point plan and I think you'll find a lot of fans put off by Victory Road will happily start tuning back in again. Here's hoping...
Wednesday 16 March 2011
It's football Jim, but not as most people know it...
You may just have missed this what with all the hoo-ha about the England captaincy (something which I'm sure I'll be writing about on here at some point this week) and the Cup semi-finals but something little short of miraculous happened this weekend in the football world. Hartlepool United, the club I've supported for the last 20 years, beat Plymouth 2-0 at Victoria Park to reach 50 points and thus secure our safety in Division 3 (oh go on then, League One if I must) for a fifth straight season. Not much you might think but bear in mind that the last three seasons since we got promoted, Pools have been very lucky not to get relegated back to Division 4 (oh go on then, League Two if I must, either way it's the division in which we've spent all but ten years of our ninety odd year Football League existence) and have ended up scraping over the line on the last day (apart from our first season when we managed it with the luxury of a week to spare). It almost goes without saying that we were odds on favourites with the world and his dog to finally bite the dust and be relegated at the start of this season so to steam over the safety line with two months of the season to spare and find ourselves comfortably ahead of sides like Sheffield Wednesday and Charlton, teams with the sort of budget to spend on the playing squad that Pools can only dream of, feels pretty damn good.
I think the key moment was five games in when our long-serving manager Chris Turner, a great manager in his day but one who'd really shown the signs of having gone stale and going through the motions in the last couple of years, was surprisingly sacked - as it turned out, it was because he was preparing to put a consortium together to put in a bid for his former club Sheffield Wednesday. Which left us with his assistant Mick Wadsworth, last seen managing Chester before they went bust about a year ago, in charge. Not a great omen. But he deserves a medal for the job he's done with Pools - in six short months we've gone from a team who looked at best demoralised and at worst out-and-out clueless to a team with the trademark Pools fighting spirit back intact. Even more remarkably it's been done with pretty much the same bunch of players, the only additions being two free transfers from Wadsworth's old stamping ground of Carlisle (including left-back Evan Horwood who I think has to qualify for being one of our finds of the season) and another from Shrewsbury. Apart from a couple of early hiccups, there's been plenty to celebrate this season - some memorable bloody noses dished out to the likes of Brighton and Peterborough, the emergence of players such as Tony Sweeney and Gary Liddle (players we always knew had talent but had just been stifled by a lack of confidence) coming into their own and, lest we forget, seeing our longest-serving player and all-round good bloke Ritchie Humphreys break the 40-year-old appearance record for Pools. It's gone from me being convinced this season was going to see us finish way adrift in the bottom four to actually believing we might be outside contenders for promotion next season - all we need is to keep the nucleus of this squad intact and get a couple of decent strikers in (our one weak area this season) and who knows what we could achieve?
A pretty impressive story then. But it's unlikely you'll have heard it unless you're a Pools fan yourself or live in North Teesside or South Durham. In this world of big money clubs and spoilt brat megastar players, clubs like us tend not to get a mention. But I think it goes without saying that Hartlepool United matter just as much to Hartlepool fans as Chelsea or Arsenal or Manchester United or Spurs do to their fans. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Pools (and other small clubs like us such as Exeter and Orient who also deserve credit for being up in the top half despite being written off as relegation dead-certs at the start of the season) can beat that on the grounds that we matter to a greater percentage of our fans than the big Premier League giants do (I have to say, I've yet to encounter anyone who you could call a Hartlepool "glory supporter").
So while the media in this country continue to go into a frenzy over Rooney's form or who the better manager is out of Ferguson and Wenger or how much Chelsea or Man City have spent on transfers this season, I'll stay here quite happy supporting Pools. It's a frustrating life most of the time but seasons such as this, the two promotions I've seen us get and seeing us run out in the League One play-off final make the tough times worthwhile. :)
I think the key moment was five games in when our long-serving manager Chris Turner, a great manager in his day but one who'd really shown the signs of having gone stale and going through the motions in the last couple of years, was surprisingly sacked - as it turned out, it was because he was preparing to put a consortium together to put in a bid for his former club Sheffield Wednesday. Which left us with his assistant Mick Wadsworth, last seen managing Chester before they went bust about a year ago, in charge. Not a great omen. But he deserves a medal for the job he's done with Pools - in six short months we've gone from a team who looked at best demoralised and at worst out-and-out clueless to a team with the trademark Pools fighting spirit back intact. Even more remarkably it's been done with pretty much the same bunch of players, the only additions being two free transfers from Wadsworth's old stamping ground of Carlisle (including left-back Evan Horwood who I think has to qualify for being one of our finds of the season) and another from Shrewsbury. Apart from a couple of early hiccups, there's been plenty to celebrate this season - some memorable bloody noses dished out to the likes of Brighton and Peterborough, the emergence of players such as Tony Sweeney and Gary Liddle (players we always knew had talent but had just been stifled by a lack of confidence) coming into their own and, lest we forget, seeing our longest-serving player and all-round good bloke Ritchie Humphreys break the 40-year-old appearance record for Pools. It's gone from me being convinced this season was going to see us finish way adrift in the bottom four to actually believing we might be outside contenders for promotion next season - all we need is to keep the nucleus of this squad intact and get a couple of decent strikers in (our one weak area this season) and who knows what we could achieve?
A pretty impressive story then. But it's unlikely you'll have heard it unless you're a Pools fan yourself or live in North Teesside or South Durham. In this world of big money clubs and spoilt brat megastar players, clubs like us tend not to get a mention. But I think it goes without saying that Hartlepool United matter just as much to Hartlepool fans as Chelsea or Arsenal or Manchester United or Spurs do to their fans. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Pools (and other small clubs like us such as Exeter and Orient who also deserve credit for being up in the top half despite being written off as relegation dead-certs at the start of the season) can beat that on the grounds that we matter to a greater percentage of our fans than the big Premier League giants do (I have to say, I've yet to encounter anyone who you could call a Hartlepool "glory supporter").
So while the media in this country continue to go into a frenzy over Rooney's form or who the better manager is out of Ferguson and Wenger or how much Chelsea or Man City have spent on transfers this season, I'll stay here quite happy supporting Pools. It's a frustrating life most of the time but seasons such as this, the two promotions I've seen us get and seeing us run out in the League One play-off final make the tough times worthwhile. :)
Tuesday 15 March 2011
'Ullo
Well I s'pose I'd better put something on here then hadn't I?...
Anyway, if you're reading this I suspect it's most likely that you know me already. But just in case you don't, my name's Andy, I'm a 32-year-old exiled northerner now living in London. By day I work for the NHS, by night I do many things but mostly play bass in the band Sun Circus and do some writing for various fanzines notably Bubblegum Slut and Pure Rawk.
This isn't going to be specifically about music though although I suspect there will be a few posts on that. This blog was specifically set up basically for what the title says - shouting, pointing and ranting. The posts could be about music, football, politics, wrestling, general frustration with every day life...whatever really. Essentially it's for stuff that won't fit in either on the 'zines I work for or on my Facebook account.
Anyway, welcome and enjoy folks - it's gonna be an interesting ride if nothing else...
Cheers,
Andy
Anyway, if you're reading this I suspect it's most likely that you know me already. But just in case you don't, my name's Andy, I'm a 32-year-old exiled northerner now living in London. By day I work for the NHS, by night I do many things but mostly play bass in the band Sun Circus and do some writing for various fanzines notably Bubblegum Slut and Pure Rawk.
This isn't going to be specifically about music though although I suspect there will be a few posts on that. This blog was specifically set up basically for what the title says - shouting, pointing and ranting. The posts could be about music, football, politics, wrestling, general frustration with every day life...whatever really. Essentially it's for stuff that won't fit in either on the 'zines I work for or on my Facebook account.
Anyway, welcome and enjoy folks - it's gonna be an interesting ride if nothing else...
Cheers,
Andy
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